CURRENT ISSUE
| Cover Story |
| Columns |
| Designing For Posterity |
| Cover Story | |
| By Juliana M. Catlin, FASID | |
| Tuesday, 31 May 2005 | |
 Our main role as an advocate and advisor to our clients requires that we not mindlessly follow the latest hip trend – and, therefore, miss helping our clients find their own personal solutions and styles. In recent years, it has become increasingly clear to me that my job as a designer is to steer clear of most of those same trends. I shiver a little at the very word “trend.” When asked at a cocktail party the burning trend question, it makes me want to answer something glib like, “When you find out, let me know so I can go in the other direction.” Forgive the wishful sarcasm, but why must our job as designers be to track what everyone else is doing with color or style? Our main role as an advocate and advisor to our clients requires that we not mindlessly follow the latest hip trend – and, therefore, miss helping our clients find their own personal solutions and styles. Think how much better the interior world would have been if all the designers in the ‘60s had not joined forces to select brown shag rugs, or had not used gold appliances. Why do we think some of the same products we are selecting today will not be received with the same disdain in 20 years? We need to ask smarter questions and personalize a space to ensure that our projects and products answer needs beyond the latest trend. In addition, it seems we have a responsibility to the environment to consider sustainability when we choose products. Think of all the trash heaps of products that we have created simply because we have not liked the styling of the products, not because they no longer functioned. I am guilty of turning up my nose at items like light fixtures and doorknobs because of style issues. It would be nice to find ways to improve my performance as a designer to save clients money, while having the environmental benefit of not replacing products periodically for trend reasons. Trends are coming and going at lightning speeds. In today's marketplace, the previous three-year span from high-end production to knock-off in the marketplace has now been reduced to months. You can see an expensive lamp in a showroom for thousands of dollars and see the same lamp style in the next wave of mail-order catalogs. Your reasons for spending on high-end products need to extend beyond the next great thing, and we need to tap into our clients' long-term tastes and styles. When catalog shopping and instant “rooms” first became available, I heard a prediction that interior designers and high-end products would become a thing of the past. Clients all over the world were going to have so many offerings at their fingertips that they would not need to hire a designer and instead would head to a store or grab a catalog. The opposite has proven to be the case. The services offered by designers have grown during this same period, and designers all over the world have experienced a new appreciation of their skills. In addition, designers are gaining future clients from the same new sources we were told to fear just a few years ago. None of the doom and gloom predicted has proven to be the case. As a matter of fact, these young consumers are learning about better design solutions. They are learning to seek high design in every aspect of their lives and homes. These future clients have learned to seek design solutions at stores like Target. They are learning that design – and, therefore, designers – are important to their lives. They are gaining an appreciation of fine design in their cars, dishes and all parts of their surroundings. An appreciation of design helps designers and the industry. With the professional advice of a designer, the client receives a high level of service and individuality he or she cannot find in a catalog or on a shelf at any store. Designers will be required to find more unique solutions with a higher, more individualized solution to problems. We are being pursued to create the custom, not the usual. If he or she wanted a catalog solution, the client could have found one. More than ever, designers and manufacturers need to allow for the personalized. We are sought out to create something that is not available to anyone else, and understanding what our clients seek will make for our ongoing success. Design-savvy consumers will seek design solutions, and your professional skills will be greatly appreciated if you bring solutions that help them interpret their own ideas and styles. Pat answers with formula solutions will be available from department stores, so your creativity will be your success. What a disservice we do to our clients if we have a planned obsolescence in the products we specify. Are we excited by the idea of using a new chair because we are currently intrigued by the look, or because we know it will pass the test of time and answer all of our clients' needs? I collect old interior design books, and it is very interesting to see how trends have come and gone. It is also interesting to see some of the contemporary and traditional interiors that are so classic that, even in a book from the 1950s, they appear classic even now. With the change of a lampshade or pillow, they could be fresh and re-photographed today. Sadly, that will only be one or two photographs per book, but I am always intrigued at what a service these designers did for their clients to provide such lasting interiors. The goal of a trend-less interior is probably too lofty. But to concentrate on less-expensive items like lamps or pillows seems a better solution for our clients than to spend on expensive items that soon will need replacing. My dream is to create a timeless interior that someone one day will view in a photograph and not be able to tell in what decade it was created, but which my client would say reflected his or her personality perfectly.” Juliana M. Catlin, FASID, is founder and president of Catlin Interiors Inc. For more information, call 904-396-5522. |
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